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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: louisem on Tuesday 10 January 23 18:52 GMT (UK)
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I was wondering if anyone knew how prisoners would have been moved from place to place in Victorian times. I was looking at an Ancestor who, in 1879, was tried at the Old Bailey and then was in Newgate Prison followed by Pentonville then Dartmoor. This was all serving one 5 yr sentence. I was particularly interested in how they would have taken him to Dartmoor but realised I didn’t know how even the more local London journeys would have been taken.
Obviously I have tried Google for this but haven’t found any clear answers, search results are dominated by info about transportation. Rootschat search not working for me at the moment.
Any info would be brilliant.
Thank you.
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A wooden crate on wheels pulled by a horse or horses. No suspension. A sprung driver's bench at the front. Space beside him for a guard. Seats, up top, for more guards. Prisoners manacled to the front wall of the box. Usually one small door at the back with a shoot bolt type lock. Guards could sit inside near the back wall.
Regards
Chas
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This gives some history -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_van (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_van)
Read down to Black Maria.
Regards
Chas
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My guess would be they would have travelled by train, handcuffed to a prison warder, possibly in chains as well to hamper any escape, and then by closed cart (think of the old horse drawn black marias) from the railway station nearest the prison to the prison itself. In the case of Dartmoor prison, I would imagine the nearest station was at Horrabridge on the South Devon Railway line between Exeter and Launceston. It's about 6 miles by road from Horrabridge to Princetown.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_van (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_van)
Read down to Black Maria.
I would say that Wikipedia article is very American-centric and is somewhat inaccurate about the British situation. A person who has been arrested in Britain is referred to as a detainee, not a prisoner, and they will normally be moved to a police custody suite in the sort of van shown at the top of the article (the Ford Transit of the Hampshire Constabulary). Once charged the detainee will be moved to court, and if convicted and sentenced to imprisonment or placed on remand, from court to prison in van operated by a contractor employed by the Home Office, eg Serco or G4S using a van similar to the one shown below.
Image by Philafrenzy and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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Thank you, very interesting. I didn’t even think to google Black Maria, have now found lots more info
A wooden crate on wheels pulled by a horse or horses. No suspension. A sprung driver's bench at the front. Space beside him for a guard. Seats, up top, for more guards. Prisoners manacled to the front wall of the box. Usually one small door at the back with a shoot bolt type lock. Guards could sit inside near the back wall.
Regards
Chas
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Thank you. I was wondering about the train. And of course some railway networks were more extensive than they are now. It seemed a long way to send someone so I was fascinated.
My guess would be they would have travelled by train, handcuffed to a prison warder, possibly in chains as well to hamper any escape, and then by closed cart (think of the old horse drawn black marias) from the railway station nearest the prison to the prison itself. In the case of Dartmoor prison, I would imagine the nearest station was at Horrabridge on the South Devon Railway line between Exeter and Launceston. It's about 6 miles by road from Horrabridge to Princetown.
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If you look at the records of prisoners (those of men and women released on licence recorded in PCOM 3 and PCOM 4, and available on FindMyPast are particularly useful ) you will see that many were moved around the prison system regularly and over long distances.
One example I use when teaching is a young woman convicted of robbery in Preston, Lancashire in the early 1880s and sentenced to 5 years. Apart from a couple of weeks in Preston gaol at the beginning, all the rest of her sentence was served in London ( in Millbank and Fulham).
I would assume the (very efficient) Victorian railway system was the main means of transport.